I think it’s because a corporation has a reputation and a history, and this grows with time and actions seen as positive by market participants. This positive image can be manipulated by ads but the company requires scale to be noticed by consumers who have finite memory.
Xerox : copy machines that were apparently good in their era
IBM : financial calculation mainframes that are still in use
Intel : fast and high quality x86 cpus and chipsets
Coke : a century of ads creating a positive image of sugar water with a popular taste
Microsoft: mediocre software and OS but they recently have built a reputation by being responsive to business clients and not stealing their data.
Boeing : reliable and high quality made in America aircraft. Until they degraded it recently to maximize short term profit. The warning light for the MACS system failure was an option Boeing demanded more money for! (Imagine if your cars brake failure warning light wasn’t in the base model)
This reputation has market value in itself and it requires scale and time to build. Individuals do not live long enough or interact with enough people to build such a reputation.
The top down hierarchy and the structure of how a company gets entrenched in doing things a certain way happens to preserve the positive actions that built a companies reputation.
This is also why companies rarely succeed in moving into truly new markets, even when they have all the money needed and internal r&d teams that have the best version of a technology.
A famous example is how Xerox had the flat out best desktop PCs developed internally, and they blew it. Kodak had good digital cameras, and they blew it. Blockbuster had the chance to buy netflix, and they blew it. Sears existed for many decades before Amazon and had all the market share and...
In each case the corporate structure somehow (I don’t know all the interactions just see signs of it at corporate jobs) causes a behavior trend where the company fails to adapt, and continues doing a variant of the thing they already do well. They continue until the ship sinks.
If the trend continues Google will fail at general AI like all the prior dead companies, and Microsoft will probably blow it as well.
I think it’s because a corporation has a reputation and a history, and this grows with time and actions seen as positive by market participants. This positive image can be manipulated by ads but the company requires scale to be noticed by consumers who have finite memory.
Xerox : copy machines that were apparently good in their era
IBM : financial calculation mainframes that are still in use
Intel : fast and high quality x86 cpus and chipsets
Coke : a century of ads creating a positive image of sugar water with a popular taste
Microsoft: mediocre software and OS but they recently have built a reputation by being responsive to business clients and not stealing their data.
Boeing : reliable and high quality made in America aircraft. Until they degraded it recently to maximize short term profit. The warning light for the MACS system failure was an option Boeing demanded more money for! (Imagine if your cars brake failure warning light wasn’t in the base model)
This reputation has market value in itself and it requires scale and time to build. Individuals do not live long enough or interact with enough people to build such a reputation.
The top down hierarchy and the structure of how a company gets entrenched in doing things a certain way happens to preserve the positive actions that built a companies reputation.
This is also why companies rarely succeed in moving into truly new markets, even when they have all the money needed and internal r&d teams that have the best version of a technology.
A famous example is how Xerox had the flat out best desktop PCs developed internally, and they blew it. Kodak had good digital cameras, and they blew it. Blockbuster had the chance to buy netflix, and they blew it. Sears existed for many decades before Amazon and had all the market share and...
In each case the corporate structure somehow (I don’t know all the interactions just see signs of it at corporate jobs) causes a behavior trend where the company fails to adapt, and continues doing a variant of the thing they already do well. They continue until the ship sinks.
If the trend continues Google will fail at general AI like all the prior dead companies, and Microsoft will probably blow it as well.